David Malouf: The Complete Stories

Oddly restrained and self-conscious, he would settle at the foot of the bed, take a book from the pile on the floor, and say, with what I thought of as a leer, "So what's this one about?” The way he handled the book, his half-embarrassed, half-suggestive tone, the painful attempt to meet me, as I saw it, on unfamiliar ground, made me uncomfortable. “You don't have to pretend you're interested,” I wanted to tell him, "just because you're going out with my sister.” On the whole, I preferred the old Stuart. I thought I knew better what he was about. It did not occur to me that what I was reading, and what I found there, might be a genuine mystery to him; which disturbed his sense of himself, and had to do with how, in this strange new household he had blundered into, with its unfamiliar views and distinctions, he might learn to fit in.

He would run his eyes over a few pages of the book he had in hand and shake his head. Thinking, I see now, of her, of Katie, and waiting for me to provide some clue — to me, I mean, to us —that would help him find common ground with her.

I would make a rambling attempt to explain who Raskolnikov was, and Sonia, and about the horse that had fallen down in the street. He would look puzzled, then stricken, then, trying to make the best of it, say, "Interesting, eh?” Waiting for some sign perhaps that I recognised the effort he was making to enter my world, and what this might reveal about him: about some other Stuart than the one I thought I knew, and knew only as “bad influence.” After about ten minutes of this, I would swing my legs off the bed and say, "Tea must be about ready, we'd better go out,” and to the relief of both of us, or so I thought, it would be over.

I had begun to dread these occasions of false intimacy between us that were intended, I thought, to be rehearsals for a time when we would be youthful brothers-in-law, close, bluff, easily affectionate. If he could get me to accept him in this role, then maybe she would.

Once, as he moved towards the door, I caught him, out of the corner of my eye, making a quick appraisal of himself in the wardrobe mirror.

Starched white shirt with the sleeves rolled high to show off his biceps. Hair slicked down with Potter and Moore jelly. In the hollow of his underlip the squared-off, dandified growth of hair he had begun to affect in recent weeks, a tuft, two or three degrees darker than his hair colour but with flecks of gingery gold, that I had overlooked at first — I thought he had simply neglected to shave there. When I realised it was deliberate I was confused. It seemed so out of character.

Now, watching him take in at a casual glance the effect he made in my wardrobe mirror, I thought again. What a bundle of contradictions he is, I told myself.

He gave me a sheepish grin, and stopped, pretending to examine his chin for a shaving nick. But what his look said was, Well, that's how it is, you can see that, eh, old son? That's what they do to us.

When Katie first began to go out with him I'd felt I should warn her. That he was wild. That he had “reputation.” Only I did not know how to begin. We had always been close, and had grown more so since my older sister Meg got married, but for all that, and the boldness in our household with which we were willing to air issues and deliver an opinion, there were subjects, back then, that we kept clear of, areas of experience we could not admit knowledge of.

And it seemed to me that Katie must know as well as I did, or better, what Stuart was like. She was the one who spent all those hours of fierce whispering with him in the dark of our front room.

For weeks at a time they would move together in what seemed like a single glow. Then I would feel an anger in her that needed only a word on my part, or a look, to make her blaze out, though the real object of her fury, I thought, was herself. Stuart, for a time, would no longer be there, on the back veranda or in the lounge after tea. Things were off between them. When I ran into him at the baths, or when he stopped and offered me a lift on the Triumph, he would look hangdog and miserable. “How are you, Angus, old son?” he'd ask, hoping I would return the question.

I didn't. The last thing I wanted was to be his confidant; to listen to his complaints about Katie or have him ask what she was saying about him, what I thought she wanted. These periods would last for days, for a whole week sometimes. Then he would be back, all scrubbed and spruced up and smelling like a sweet shop. Narrow-eyed and watchful. Like a cat, I thought. But also, in a way he could not help and could not help showing, happily full of himself and of his power over her. Couldn't he see, I thought, how mad it made her, and that it was this in the long run that would bring him down?

The crisis came a year or so after they first began.

Nothing was said — my parents were the very spirit of tact in such matters — but I guessed Katie had given him his marching orders. Again. Again. Because for two nights running he did not appear. Then, late on the second night, I looked out and the little Anglia he sometimes ran around in was parked under the street light opposite.

It was there at nine and was still there at half past ten. What was he doing? Just sitting there, I guessed, hunched and unhappy, chewing on his bitten-down nails.

To see if she had some other fellow calling?

More likely, I thought, just to be close to her. Or if not her, the house itself. To reassure himself that since we were all in and going about our customary routine, no serious breach had occurred. Then, remembering the old Stuart, I thought, No, it's his way of intimidating her. It's a kind of bullying. Didn't he know the first thing about her? Had he learned nothing in all those hours in the dark of the lounge room or the back veranda? Did he think that because she had sent him packing on previous occasions, all he had to do now was apply pressure and wait?

I could have told him something about those other occasions. That she was the sort of girl who did not forgive such demonstrations of her own weakness or those who caused them. There was only a limited number of times she would allow herself to be so shamefully humiliated. I stood hidden behind the slats of my sleepout and watched him there. Was she watching too?

I was surprised. That he should just drive up like that and park under the street light where everyone could see him. Was he more inventive than I'd guessed?

It seemed out of character too. Melodramatic. The sort of thing people did in the movies. Was that where he had got it?

Next morning at breakfast I glanced across at Katie to see if she too had seen him, and got a defiant glare. Then that night, late, when I went out to the kitchen to get a drink, she confronted me.

“So what do you think?” she demanded.

It was a clammy night. Airless. Without a breath. She was barefoot, her hair stuck to her brow with sweat. We stood side by side for a moment at the kitchen window.

“He's been there now for three nights running,” she said. “It's ridiculous!”

I passed behind her and opened the fridge.

“Maybe you should go down,” she said, "and sit with him.”

“What? What would I want to do that for?”

“Well, you're mates, aren't you?”

I had turned with the cold-water bottle. She took it from me and rolled it, with its fog of moisture, across her damp forehead, then her throat and chest.

“Is that what Stuart says?”

“Not what he says. Stuart never says anything, you know that.”

“What then? What do you mean?”

“Oh, nothing,” she said wearily. She handed the bottle back. “Let's drop it.”

“Braden's my friend,” I told her. “If Stuart wasn't here every night I wouldn't even see him from one week's end to the next.”